​Colleagues,
 
The chances are good that several remarkable individuals helped you to develop your leadership skills. Pause and take a moment to think about them and be grateful.
 
And now it is your turn. Who are you developing?
 
It’s easy to talk about building someone’s leadership capacity, but how do you actually do it? 
 
Here are three strategies that work together to help develop leadership:

1. Intentionally provide leadership opportunities. Think about the person’s current capacity and give them a responsibility that is at or slightly above what they are capable of.
2. Provide structure and supports that enable them to fulfill the responsibility. The more challenging the responsibility, the more support the person will need. Here are three simple forms of support:
   1. Provide a timeline and written criteria for success.
   2. Conduct scheduled check-ins to monitor progress.
   3. Provide detailed checklists or standard operating procedures to help guide them.
3. Engage in reflective coaching throughout the process. Yes, you can fall back on the three questions from 5-minute coaching:
   1. What’s going well?
   2. What has surprised you?
   3. What would you do differently?

 
The hardest thing about growing leaders is being intentional about it, but that’s also what is so cool! You can grow others’ leadership; you just need to be thoughtful and prioritize it.
 
Before you get on with your busy day, how about taking a minute to reach out and thank that person who was intentional about helping you grow? If that person is no longer with us, then think about the part of them that lives on in you and be grateful.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick

 
Colleagues,
 
Today we conclude our series on the leader as gardener.
 
Fall is harvest time, the time to profit from the investments you’ve made in the garden. Perhaps your harvest will be consumed as it is gathered, it might be given away, or maybe it will be stored for winter. 
 
The bearing of fruit by people (the outcome of their growth) is similar. Sometimes those seeds result in things that improve the organization or make your leadership easier. Other times the produce goes somewhere we don’t access. We may not be the ones to enjoy, but our gardening has made a difference to the person and others somewhere else. It may be that the product is put up for some other time in the future. Again, we may not be there to witness the final impact.
 
I’m thinking about providing some specific examples next week, but maybe it is time to let this ground fallow!
 
Reflect on people who planted seeds in you. What story can you tell, and what was the fruit?
 
Again. I love getting your feedback, so share your questions or stories here.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick

​Colleagues,
 
We’ve talked about preparing to plant seeds by preparing the soil and how that corresponds to creating an organizational environment with minimal turbulence. Now it is time to talk about seeds.
 
We could spend a week just on this aspect of the leader as a gardener, but we will focus on one simple idea: it isn’t up to you to choose what seed to plant.
 
Please take a moment to reflect on this. It isn’t up to you to choose what seed to plant.
 
I love avocados, but they are not going to grow in my climate. So how do you know what seed to plant? Listen to the people in whom you will be planting seeds.
 
In his incredible 1971 treatise, On Caring, Milton Mayeroff said that if we really care about someone, we help them grow in the ways in which they need to grow. We take their lead in the process, in contrast to us trying to remake them in our image or turn them into what we want them to be.
 
When we listen closely, people will tell us what they need and what they are ready for. They may not do it consciously and they may be unaware of it themselves, but in being present and listening, leaders gain insight into the needs of those they serve. 
 
Last week I asked you to think about people in whom you could plant seeds. Think about those people now, and reflect on their needs, and how they have communicated them to you.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick

Colleagues,
 
This week we are looking at leadership through a gardening analogy. Yesterday we talked about the importance of knowing your garden and planning (read it here). Today, we’ll look at preparing the soil.
 
Seeds will grow almost anywhere, but they will grow better in soil that meets the specific needs of the seed. Poor soil conditions create stress on seeds and plants. At best, they will survive without reaching their potential and at worst they will die. Stressed plants will be less resilient to environmental changes and more susceptible to disease and insect attacks.
 
Gardner’s prepare soil by balancing acidity, creating a loose mix, and adding nutrients. How does this transfer to leadership?
 
We can think of soil as being the environment our people work in. A poor environment is like poor soil in which people, and your efforts to grow them, will not be productive.
 
My good friend Steven Gross used the paradigm of flying conditions to describe four levels of organizational health, which he called Turbulence Theory:

1. Light turbulence: little or no stress and people have the capacity to learn and grow.
2. Moderate turbulence: people have the capacity (and some motivation caused by the turbulence) to grow.
3. Severe turbulence: people’s capacity to grow is severely limited as they are in crisis.
4. Extreme turbulence: the organization is collapsing, and no growth is possible.

 
For leaders, creating a healthy organization with mild turbulence is the best way to create an environment in which people can grow. We can also apply turbulence theory to people’s personal lives, with the same implications for growth.
 
So, how turbulent is your organization and the lives of the people within it? What can you do to “prepare the soil” by decreasing organizational stress?
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick